The future of Big Data — an iPolitics live event

Big data can help individuals make decisions, help businesses offer better services, help governments — and private companies — cut costs. It’s an ever-changing field, and while some large cities embrace data, there are still millions of marginalized people who have no access to the online world.

Fen Hampson, a Chancellor’s professor at Carleton University, shared some of his reflections about ‘Big Data’ at an iPolitics Live event at the Westin Hotel Wednesday morning.

Hampson talked about “smart cities” and how they’re using big data analytics to do a better job of providing public services.

“Singapore is taking this to a whole new level … what some now call the digital silk road,” he said.

In late 2014, said Hampson, Singapore’s prime minister watched what’s called a ‘smart nation program’ that’s going to use an undetermined number of sensors and cameras to allow the government to monitor everything from the cleanliness of public spaces to the density of crowds, and the precise movement of locally registered vehicles.

“The reams of data that are collected by these different sensors will also feed into an online platform that citizens can access, that’s been called virtual Singapore.”

Hampson said it’s important to recognize that the big data revolution is being driven by two sources.

“First, the torrential downpour of data from phones, credit cards, television computers and sensors on … trains, airplanes, cars, bridges, factories. Now that downpour is going to turn into a tidal wave with the ‘internet of things’ and we’re already in that world,” he said.

According to Hampson, there are now more objects hooked up to the internet than people — 15 billion devices in all, a number that could grow to 50 billion by 2020.

Hampson used an app developed by the city of Boston to illustrate the problem of sampling bias. The app allows drivers to notify the city when they hit potholes, to expedite repair. Trouble is, the map only showed some potholes — because only the more affluent drivers downloaded the app.

The problem of sampling bias exists on a global scale, he said.

“There are currently 3.5 billion internet users online, but there are still four million people who are offline.”

“The digital divide is not just between rich and poor nations, it also exists within many societies. There are gender divides, more girls and women are offline, many marginalized groups, including ethnic minorities, are also offline,” he said.

Anthony Scriffignano, chief data scientist at Dun and Bradstreet, followed Hampson’s speech with a keynote address. He began by running an experiment with the crowd — asking audience members to clap once, then twice, then three times.

“What happened?” he asked, pointing out that the the pace of the clapping was consistent. When we talk about data, he said, we tend to imagine that it’s all been organized, put in rows and columns — but in the real world, data sets shift constantly and are “unstructured.”

“Information is increasing, and is increasing at a rate that is no longer measurable, and this is extremely alarming,” he said.

Scriffignano also talked about how data management is fuelling “the internet of things” — web-enabled appliances like the Fitbit on his wrist. “I’m wearing a fitness monitor … not getting any fitter,” he said, drawing laughs from the crowd.

Krista Campbell, director general of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, joined Kevin Kolliniatis, a partner with KPMG, and Mark Fisher, president and CEO of the Council of the Great Lakes Regions, for a panel titled ‘Big Data – Where will it take us?’

Campbell talked about the government’s role in setting data frameworks. Kolliniatis raised the issue of organizations protecting their data and having a hard time merging their data to get meaningful results — a problem that affects governments, too.